


disappear into the trees

by Kitty Eden (TheBigCat)



Category: Ruby Redfort Series - Lauren Child
Genre: AU, Dragons, Fantasy, Gen, More characters to come, god i hope people enjoy this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-01-16 09:19:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12339855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBigCat/pseuds/Kitty%20Eden
Summary: Ruby goes rambling into the local Murder Forest, gets lost, and also there are dragons. Alotof dragons.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i know where i'm going with this but i'm kinda afraid i won't be able to finish it
> 
> encouragement is appreciated

It was only after Ruby had been moving through the forest for nearly an hour that she realized just how lost she had gotten herself. There was a reason nobody went into the woods beyond Twinford, after all - quite apart from the legends associated with them that tended to include ferocious monsters and pits of endless quicksand - it was just flat-out common knowledge that nobody who had entered them had ever come out quite the same. 

It was just one of those  _things._ Kids at Ruby's school - especially the older boys, raring for a chance to prove themselves, and sometimes the younger ones too, brash and foolhardy - liked to dare each other to go as far as they can manage. They rarely got more than a few hundred metres before they came back into the safety of the fieldlands, blushing and blustering, spouting endless excuses. As far as anybody could remember, Del Lasco held the current record, having embarked a full seven hundred metres (she counted) and far enough that she couldn't see the light of the entrance anymore before coming back. But not (she claimed) because she was  _scared_ , or anything similar to that, oh  _no._  No, it was because Del, brave and confident, had felt, well,  _something_ breathing on the back of her neck, and beating a hasty retreat back to the fieldlands wasn't so much cowardice as saving her own skin and living to adventure another day.

Ruby could respect that, and told Del later in no uncertain terms that, in her opinion, Del had done an  _excellent_ job that day, and fully deserved her name carved into the old stump near the school and the bragging rights that going that far out had earned her. These accomplishments were always  kept secret, of course, for fear of scolding from adults, and even worse - the fear that they wouldn't be allowed to play in the fieldlands anymore.

As far as Ruby Redfort was concerned, though, there was no real point in going out to the woods for reasons as ridiculous as 'proving herself'. Everybody that mattered already knew just how capable she was, and there had to be a reason why all of the older people in Twinford had deemed the woods 'too dangerous'. 

She had always just dismissed it as something she would probably get around to doing when she was older - an adventure to save for later, probably undertaken with proper equipment and some sort of means to defend herself from potential attacking creatures. She never once thought that she would end up far,  _far_ deeper into the forest than any daring classmates of her had ever gone at just twelve years of age, and with only the bare minimum of supplies to boot- a small amount of bread and cheese, hastily wrapped with cloth and shoved into her hands before she left, a pocket knife that she had carried around since she was nine, a dog-eared notebook and pencil, and a lantern that had been blown out by the wind moments ago. 

When the light of the lantern went out, Ruby stopped, the adrenaline from her initial dash into the woods fading quickly. She was now aware of the chill of the wind rustling through the trees, and how much her bare feet were stinging. The woods had an initial sort of dirt path that she had begun to follow, but it had given way to a tangled mess of trees and brambles that had frequently caught her bare skin without her realizing it. 

She winced, and hunted around in her pockets for anything that could relight the lantern that was now dangling uselessly from one arm. Nothing. No matches, no flint- and her glasses would be useless, since there was no sunlight in this forest for her to focus them through. That only left one option; the one that all survivalists dreaded. 

Ruby knelt and felt her way blindly around in the dirt. Thankfully, the ground was dry, and it wasn't hard to find two sticks of roughly the same size. She sank to her knees, placing her bundle of supplies on the ground with her lantern right next to it, and started rubbing the two sticks together, attempting to build up enough friction to create a spark. 

Her hair began to fall around her face as she worked in tangled clumps, but she was too busy with her task to brush it back into place. She knew the theory of how to light a fire, of course, but had never tried it, and was fully knowledgeable about how  _hard_ it was supposed to be. Even after five minutes rubbing frantically, nothing was happening apart from how much her frustration was mounting.

It was either relight her lantern, or finding her way through the death forest in complete darkness. Going back to Twinford was  _not_ an option, and staying in one spot also didn't sound too good. If there were as many monsters and wild animals as the legends suggested, keeping on the move would be a good way to stay off their radar. Ruby hissed sharply as one of her sticks slipped and caught on her finger. She dropped it, and in her haste to grab it from the ground again, ended up snapping it in half.

She swore loudly - probably too loudly, considering where she was - and resorted to sucking her slightly injured finger, glaring at the ground. This wasn't getting her anywhere. 

Doggedly, she picked up a new stick from next to her, and resumed the task of getting some sort of fire to start, and she had been going at it for a full ten minutes when she heard a sort of  _crack_ in the undergrowth behind her, like something had stepped on a branch. She froze in terror for a moment, and then dropped her sticks, diving for the lantern and supplies. She ended up rolling across the ground inelegantly towards the other side of the clearing she had paused in, stopping when she broke through a shrubbery and hit a tree beyond it. Overreacting to a small noise?Maybe, but there was no way she was taking any chances in the damn  _murder woods._

As it turned out, Ruby hadn't been overreacting at all. Even as she struggled to her feet, clutching her belongings tightly to her chest and preparing to run for her life, she heard the distinct sound of something large and bulky crashing through the trees, heading directly towards her. 

Eyes wide, Ruby  _bolted,_ choosing a random direction into the woods, and just kind of going for it. She barely even noticed the rocks and twigs tearing at the bottom of her bare feet, or the thorns pulling at her shirts and jeans - the only things that mattered were the forest in front of her, and the beast that was hot on her trail. She heard an almighty crash, and at a guess that was probably a tree toppling over  _\- jeez, just how big_ is  _this thing?_  - and she redoubled her efforts at running, fully aware of how futile this was. Maybe the thing chasing her would just give up and leave her alone, but she somehow doubted it; that really wasn't how things tended to work.

She ditched her supplies - the bundle of cheese and bread went tumbling to the ground in her wake, and shortly after, she ditched the lantern too. It was useless anyway, and maybe the broken glass would deter the thing chasing her.

Her lungs were burning, her feet felt like they were bleeding, and she was tiring quickly. She looked around in the barely-penetrable darkness, and spotted a tree that had maybe just enough handholds for her to scramble up. Maybe if she was out of sight, it would forget about her. 

She changed directions rapidly, sprinting towards the tree, and leaping for the lowest branch when she was in range. Ruby was good at climbing trees, very good - a lifetime of friendship with Clancy Crew had helped with that - but the darkness and her panic had both contributed to her miscalculating the distance and how much she had to jump to get up the tree. 

She overbalanced, sailing straight through the air, and hitting the ground at an angle with an  _oof._ It left her thoroughly winded, and completely unable to get up, even though she knew just how much danger she was in and how important it was that she  _get moving, now._

She lay there, gasping and struggling to push her up, and froze again as she felt hot, steady breath on the back of her neck. This time, there was no opportunity for her to run, and she knew that this was it; this was the end of Ruby Redfort. She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, and then took in a deep, shuddering breath before turning to meet her death head-on.

Towering over her was a dragon - tall and vast and intimidating, with dark bronze scales that shone even in the very dim light of the forest. It dwarfed her, at least four times as big as her and with a tail of the same size. Its wings were extended to their full, impressive width, going past the edges of Ruby's field of vision, and its teeth were bared in a ferocious snarl, with its eyes fixed directly on hers. She could feel the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. Her heart was hammering loudly in her ears. She began to raise a hand, although she wasn't sure why - to defend herself? To plead for her life? A last-ditch attempt at fighting it off?

She was sure that it was going to lean forwards and eat her up, or maybe it would unleash a torrent of fire first and toast her to a crisp, but nothing happened. The dragon stayed where it was, mid-snarl, and the only sound apart from her heavy breathing was the wind through the trees.

This continued on for what felt like forever. Ruby swallowed hard, wondering if it would be worth it to just make another run for it, or would that make it worse in the long run - 

The dragon's wings twitched backwards, and then folded back to its sides. It sank down from the threatening posture it had been in to something less terrifying - it no longer looked  _quite_ so tall, and that ferocious snarl it had been wearing was now completely gone.

 _Okay,_  thought Ruby, utterly confused but still kind of terrified,  _what kind of trick is it trying now?_

It leaned down so its head was now very close to hers, big brown eyes squinting as if it was trying to see her properly, and as soon as it made eye contact with her, it froze in place.

"Oh hell," said the dragon, sounding horrified. "You're a  _kid._ "

_Wait, what._

"-I. Sorry. _What?_ "

The dragon, who apparently spoke with a vaguely British accent - and dragons could apparently speak now, that was now a thing - took several steps backwards. It looked as if it was now trying to make itself look as non-threatening as possible. "Why are you even out here? How did you even  _get_ this far? This is - you're nearly at the center of the forest, that should be impossible-"

"You're talking about  _impossible,"_ Ruby blurted,"but all I can see in front of me is a talking dragon and actually I don't think me running through the woods is all that comparable to that."

"That's a fair point, but there's no reason you should be out here, especially not at-" the dragon's gaze flicked upwards, like he was trying to figure out the time. "- it's literally midnight. You're out in the woods at  _midnight."_

Ruby didn't really want to talk about her reasons for being in the forest at such a late hour, especially not towards a  _talking dragon that had just been chasing her through the trees five minutes ago_ , so - "I was taking a walk."

"A walk." Apparently it was possible for dragons to look unconvinced.

"Yep. Wanted to clear my head." Ruby scooted back too - there was now a sizable distance between the two of them - and she sat up properly, tucking her legs underneath her. "Couldn't get to sleep, y'know?"

"There are monsters out here." The dragon now sounded exasperated. "Wolves and monsters and  _manticores,_ and-"

"Dragons?" 

"Well, yes." The dragon blinked at her. "Practically everything in here is deadly, kid. I'm honestly amazed you aren't dead yet."

"The only monster I've seen since I got here is  _you_ ," Ruby pointed out, narrowing her eyes. "And apart from chasing me and nearly giving me a heart attack.... you haven't actually done that much that could be counted as 'deadly'."

"I am, happily, one of the exceptions to that little rule."

"Of course you are." Ruby was still pretty tense, but she was beginning to relax slightly. She didn't exactly feel threatened at the moment, although she wasn't sure why. "Why were you chasing me, then?"

"Oh, er." It was kind of interesting watching the expressions pass over the dragon's face - almost human, but not quite. This time, it might have been embarrassment. "A lot of... less than nice people tend to come into this forest. Currently, I have the job of keeping them out - redirecting them to the exit, or taking... care of them."

"You could have asked nicely," Ruby muttered.

The dragon twitched his wings absently. "You know, it's funny - I actually  _was_  going to, but then you took off running in the  _exact_ direction I didn't want you going in before I could say anything. And since I couldn't see you properly..."

"Right," said Ruby. "That makes sense. Thanks for not killing me, I guess."

"No problem." The dragon sounded like he was grinning.

"So, uh." Ruby glanced around at the woods around her. Even if this was the 'exact direction she wasn't supposed to go', she still had no idea where it was or where she was supposed to be going. The entire forest looked the same to her. "If you're not going to eat me, or 'take care of me'... what happens now?"

"Well." The dragon's tail swished back and forth, batting against a nearby tree. "You live in Twinford, right?"

"I...  _yeah..._ " Ruby wasn't too sure where he was going with this.

"Then I'll escort you back there." The dragon rose up onto his legs, shaking out his wings before folding them back along his back. He inclined his head; an invitation to follow. 

But Ruby shook her head immediately. "No. No, I- I can't go back there."

"Why not?" asked the dragon in a tone of voice that implied he was amused. "You were only 'going on a walk', and I'd say that that's over now." 

Ruby kept shaking her head, the panic from before quickly overtaking her again. "You don't understand, that's not... it's not safe right now. Really  _super_ not safe. Please don't make me go back there."

The dragon was now eyeing her in a manner that suggested he was kind of concerned. "Is this to do with school? Because I've heard that school's pretty awful, but running into the most deadly forest in the area to get out of finishing your homework strikes me as a  _little_ extreme..."

"No, I-" Similar to before, she heard a twig snap in the distance, like something - or someone - had broken it while getting close, and her mouth snapped shut mid-explanation. She suddenly was aware of just how exposed she was in the clearing, and how  _big_ the dragon standing opposite her really was. She stood up abruptly, taking a step back. "I can't... I mean - I've gotta go." 

She stepped back a few more paces, and turned to start running again. As she took off, branches cracking and leaves crumbling underneath her feet, she heard the dragon snarl, "kid,  _stop!_ " and she immediately started running faster, head bent forward and eyes shut against the wind and debris in her eyes. 

Behind her, the sound of animal feet thumping the ground and a large body tearing through the undergrowth could be heard, much faster than before. 

Ruby only realized that whatever was now chasing her  _wasn't_ the dragon she had been talking to when she heard a loud roar that reminded her remarkably of a lion, and then the hiss of a snake that was much louder than a snake's hiss should be. She twisted around to look, and caught a glimpse of long horns and claws dripping with some sort of venom, and of  _course_ this had to be the exact point that she collided painfully with a tree and ended up sprawled on the ground, stunned.

There was no time to keep going, and she was desperately hoping that if she just stayed still and didn't move a muscle, it might not see her in the darkness of the forest. She froze in place on the ground, hardly daring to breathe. The monster was no longer moving, she could hear that much. Maybe it had left?

Ruby uncurled herself, looked up cautiously, and came face-to-face with a fully-grown lion with glowing red eyes.

She screamed (undignified, but really, what are you  _supposed_ to do in a situation like this?) and the lion roared and reared back, and she was just thinking how much cooler it would have to be killed by a massive bronze  _dragon_  and what a missed opportunity this all was, when said massive bronze dragon swooped down from the sky, wings outstretched. It knocked the lion back several feet, and without it right up in her face, Ruby could see that it wasn't really a lion at all - rather, a lion just so happened to be one of its three heads. It was a strange amalgamation of three animals that seemed to have been haphazardly thrown together, each part merging smoothly into the next. Quite apart from the lion, which took up the main head and front legs of the creature, a goat with wickedly sharp horns and dangerous-looking hooves glared out of the mix, and an oversized snake was coiled around the back end of it.

The dragon was circling around this new clearing in a tight loop, rearing around to attack the lion-snake-goat hybrid once more. The hybrid itself was no longer focused on Ruby, with all six of its eyes on this bigger, more immediate threat. Ruby took the opportunity to struggle to her feet, using a tree as a makeshift crutch. 

The fight was short but brutal. Initially it seemed as if the hybrid creature was getting the upper hand - the dragon wasn't getting too close to it, and was just circling the area, trying to draw its attention away. Inevitably, the chimera quickly got bored of this, and starting eyeing Ruby in a hungry manner that she really didn't like. It snarled, turning towards her, then opened its goat jaws and then - astonishingly enough - let loose a burst of flame. 

The dragon twisted, putting his back and wings to the creature and shielding Ruby, then grunted as its full weight landed on his back, clawing and snapping. The dragon twisted again, slamming back against a tree, knocking his attacker off him, and whirled sharply, bringing the full force of his long, muscular tail onto the beast. Ruby would've thought the dragon had killed it if she couldn't see its chest moving.

The dragon shook his wings out, and then refolded them along his sides, before returning his attention to Ruby. "You all right?"

"Yeah- yeah, I'm..." said Ruby, running a hand through her hair. "-what  _was_ that thing?"

"A chimera," said the dragon, grimacing. "They don't usually come out around here, but you  _were_ making a lot of noise..."

Ruby's eyes narrowed, and then she stood on her toes so she could see the dragon's back properly. "You're hurt." A long, shallow gash had been ripped open across his back, presumably during the fight. It was bleeding sluggishly now, with a fluid that was more gold than red spilling over his scales.

The dragon glanced back to look at the wound. "It's not too bad, don't worry. I'll survive. But  _you,_ " he added with a pointed glance at her, "probably wouldn't have."

"Well, sue me for being a  _bit_ wary of being in a murder forest with a massive dragon that almost killed me in the last hour-or-so!" Ruby snapped, folding her arms in front of her.

They stared at each other for a moment. Ruby got the distinct impression that if the dragon had been humanoid, his arms would be firmly crossed in a mirror of her right now.

Eventually he sighed. "Look, kid. I think we might have started off on a bad note, and... I'm really, honestly sorry about that. Let's try again." He held out a forelimb, extending a talon that Ruby noticed had been carefully blunted at some point. "Everybody calls me Hitch."

Ruby wrapped her fingers around it carefully, and shook. "I'm Ruby. I'm also sorry, about that same thing."

"Glad we've got that cleared up." Hitch placed his foot back onto the ground. "Now- about getting you home..."

"If you suggest taking me back to Twinford, I'll run off on my own again," said Ruby seriously.

"I kinda figured it would be something like that, yeah," Hitch said, sighing. "All right. It's nearly midnight, and Twinford  _does_ happen to be quite a while away, so how about we compromise?"

"I'm listening," said Ruby.

"We head back to my... home, I guess you'd call it, and we find you a place where you can get some sleep. And then in the morning we can sort out whyever it is that you don't want to go home." He gave her a searching look for a second. "If it's your parents..."

"What? No!" Ruby immediately shook her head emphatically. "No! It's definitely not my parents... oh jeez, was I implying that? I did  _not_ mean to - it's nothing to do with my family, my family's great -  _really_ great, actually, apart from that one cousin on Mom's side, and we never really invite him to family reunions anyway, so-"

"Well, I'm glad to hear that." Hitch's voice had lost some of the worried tone that it had contained earlier. "So if it isn't your family, and I'm assuming that you didn't just go for a walk either, then...?"

Ruby frowned and not-so-subtly changed the subject. "How about we just go to your house, or wherever it is that you were talking about? You said yourself, it isn't safe out here."

"Not a house," said Hitch, "and all right. You obviously don't want to talk about it, so..." He affected a shrug. 

"Cool," said Ruby, grinning, stepping up to stand right next to him. "Lead the way, dragon man."

"Don't call me that," he huffed, and headed off into the dark of the woods at a steady pace, with Ruby running every few steps to keep up with him. 

Soon, the blackness swallowed them up.

 


	2. Chapter 2

An area the size of a small village had been cleared among the trees, and a large variety of tents and structures made out of canvas filled up most of that space. A fire was smoldering gently, basically just embers, in the pit at the center of the clearing, and it was just as huge as the rest of the place. The entire place radiated color, with hammocks and scraps of fabric tied up in the trees and along ropes to make bright flag marquees that were strung everywhere, interspaced with paper lanterns that lit up what the gradually dying fire didn't. The overall effect was that of peacefulness and homeliness. It was hard  _not_ to like it.

And that wasn't even mentioning the occupants of the place.

 _Oh man,_  Ruby thought, following Hitch into the area,  _dragon village_.

It really was. Dragons of every imaginable color, shape and size were everywhere - most of them asleep or resting. The hammocks that filled the trees were almost all occupied, although it was difficult to tell from the ground, because some of them were ridiculously high up. Ruby could see tails and wings and claws hanging over the edges of the canvases, occasionally twitching. And some were on the ground, curled up cat-like into scaly balls or just sprawled across the grass or rocks or logs and taking up as much room as it was possible to do.

If she had to guess, Ruby would have said that there were about forty, maybe fifty dragons in the clearing in total - although that was by no means an accurate figure. The variety was astounding. Almost every dragon seemed to be a different color - Hitch was a metallic bronze, of course, but there were scarlet dragons and green ones and silver dragons, and some dragons whose scales seemed to form a gradient, sliding from one color to the next from the head to the tip of their tail. Not all of the dragons resembled Hitch, either - there was variation in their anatomies. The blue dragon closest to where Hitch and Ruby had entered through looked to be asleep, but they were small and didn't have wings, although their feet appeared to be slightly webbed.

Ruby still had her dog-eared notebook with her, tucked into the inside pocket of her jacket, and she itched to take it out and start noting down all her observations. But she held back - usually she wouldn't be so wary about being rude, but annoying an entire tribe (it looked like) of dragons would probably be a bad idea.

"Don't worry," Hitch muttered to her under his breath, almost as if he had read her mind, "everybody here is friendly. They wouldn't be here if they weren't."

They hadn't quite entered the clearing yet, just hovering close enough outside of it so Ruby could see in and take in all of the sights. Not all of the dragons were asleep - some were still awake and clustered in small groups, talking to each other in low tones. None of them had noticed Ruby's presence yet. She wasn't entirely sure if this was a good thing.

Hitch took a step into the clearing, and Ruby, uncharacteristically, hung back. He looked back at her. "Come on. We don't bite."

"I dunno, man, you all look like you've got pretty nasty fangs," said Ruby, letting a trace of anxiety slip into her voice.

He laughed. "They're mostly for show," he said, and then stepped forward, dipping his head and wings so he could enter the clearing unimpeded. "I'm back," he announced to the dragons that were still awake.

Some of them acknowledged his presence with a nod or a muttered greeting, but the overall tone seemed to indicate that seeing Hitch return from the forest was only a mildly pleasant occurrence, something that happened often and wasn't really worth remarking on.

"Miles and Blacker are asleep already," volunteered a dragon who was on the smaller side (although still much bigger than Ruby), with deep purple scales and her tail coiled lazily around a tree. "They waited up for a bit, but -  _hang on_." Her head swiveled around, eyes narrowing as she noticed Ruby. "What's this?"

It wasn't a malicious look that she was using - more curious than anything but Ruby took a step back anyway.

"Oh my god," said one of the others - bright red, no wings - craning his neck to get a closer look at her. "Hitch kidnapped a  _human._ "

This statement was delivered loudly enough for a lot of the other groups of dragons, who up until now hadn't been involved, to start looking over and murmuring amongst themselves.

"Oh wow - she's  _tiny_ -"

"-where did you think he found her-"

"LB's gonna  _flip_  when she gets back-"

"...are all humans this small?"

"Uh," said Ruby, who had basically been backed up against a tree by the sheer amount of dragons that were surrounding her and trying to get a look at her. "I take it you don't get many visitors around here?"

"Humans are a bit of a rarity," said Hitch, and although Ruby couldn't actually see him properly, she could definitely hear amusement in his voice.

Now they were coming down from the trees - the amount of commotion that Ruby's arrival had caused was apparently enough to wake them up, even at midnight. At first it had only been curious scaly faces peeking over the edges of the hammocks, bright eyes glinting in the dim light from the fire and lanterns, but it didn't take long at all until dragons of all colors and sizes were descending to the ground. Some simply dropped down from the trees like stones, shaking the ground with impacts a they landed, and others glided, drifting down like brightly colored leaves.

As Ruby watched, slightly stunned, the campsite came alive with activity. At some point when she wasn't watching, one of the many dragons must have relit the fire properly, because now it was glowing brightly enough to light up the entire clearing bright as day, hissing and spitting as it did so. The crowd of dragons trying to see her had grown so thick it was pretty much impossible to make out individuals - it was now a blur of rainbow scales and wings, and all of them were talking at once too. Complete chaos.

Most of the discussion seemed to be between the dragons, with none of them really directing any questions at Ruby herself. At one point, she caught the tail end of an argument with the last bit of it being thrown at her by a tall green dragon with batlike wings- "-you're like  _ten_ , right?"

"I'm  _twelve_ , actually," she said indignantly, but before she could enter into any sort of dialogue with this green dragon guy, Hitch rose into the air above all of the gathered dragons, flapping his wings in great downwards beats to keep himself aloft.

"Okay, everybody  _stop talking,_ " he bellowed, loud enough so everybody could hear.

Gradually, the noise level died down to scattered whispers.

"Look," he said, still hovering, "I know it's exciting that a human is here and all, but stop crowding her. Like so many of you have  _probably_ noticed, she's pretty small - and we don't want to squish her by accident."

The crowd, collectively and rather sheepishly, shuffled backwards. Hitch let himself descend to the ground, landing a short distance from where Ruby was already standing.

"I feel like we're all kinda glossing over the fact that  _Hitch stole a human,_ " called a tall red dragon with speckles of white all down her back.

"He didn't steal me," protested Ruby, "I  _agreed_ to come with him, and besides-"

"Oh shit," said someone in the crowd, evidently shocked. "It can talk!"

"Don't sound so surprised," said the green dragon from before, "I'm pretty sure most humans can. Unfortunately."

"-if I had  _left_ her out there, she'd have been eaten by something other than that one chimera that showed up," Hitch said, voice cutting loudly across everyone else's.

A short silence followed, then the purple dragon that had first spoken shrugged, sloping her shoulders in an angular manner. "Okay, fair enough."

"LB's still probably gonna murder you," added somebody else that Ruby couldn't see.

This name - LB - had now been brought up several times, and Ruby was getting pretty curious as to who they were. But she figured that now probably wasn't the time, so she kept her mouth shut.

"Uh, I'm Ruby," she said instead, and decided to throw in an awkward wave of greeting for good measure.

A surprising amount of dragons murmured scattered variations of 'hi, Ruby' in her direction.

"She's just staying here tonight," said Hitch, "I'll take her to a town outside the forest tomorrow morning. LB might not even be back by then! There's no need to-"

" _What_ did Hitch do?" came a voice from above, and one of the few dragons that hadn't come down from the trees in the initial rush glided to the ground in a lazy sort of spiral. He was a speckled sort of light grey dragon, on the smaller side and, with no other way to describe it,  _extremely fluffy._ Rather than the hard-looking scales that most of the other dragons had, he had a sort of short fur covering his body that was thicker and soft looking in some other areas. His tail and wings in particular were the fluffiest - although his entire appearance seemed to scream 'disheveled' anyway.

"He stole a baby!" said that same green dragon. Ruby let out an annoyed groan as the grey dragon landed, with the rest of the group shifting away to give him space to land.

"I mean, I can't say I'm  _surprised,_ but..." and then the dragon actually managed to look at Ruby and frowned. " _Miles,_ she's not a baby. She's, like. Thirteen?"

"Twelve," said Ruby. "Look, uh? I know that humans are probably a really big deal and everything, but can I stay here tonight at  _least?_ Because it's pretty late. And, um..."

"Does anybody have any  _huge_ objections to this situation that  _can't wait until tomorrow?_ " Hitch called, raising his voice again.

There was a pause, and then there was a vague consensus of  _not really._

"Great," said Hitch. "So go back to sleep, folks."

Gradually, all of the dragons drifted away - most heading back to their hammocks and other assorted sleeping areas, and some others staying to talk in small groups before leaving. Eventually, the only ones left were Hitch, Ruby, the grey speckled dragon, and the green one - who was apparently called 'Miles'.

"Sorry about that," said Hitch to Ruby. "I didn't expect everyone to be so interested."

"Eh, it's fine," Ruby dismissed, and then: "there are a  _lot_ of you." She paused. "Like, a  _huge amount."_

"At the last count, there were sixty-two of us," Hitch said. "Sometimes outsider dragons drop in."

"As far as we know, we're the only large community of dragons on this continent," chimed in the grey dragon, sitting down and curling his tail around himself. "...and I think you might be the first human in about a hundred years to find out about our existence."

"A...  _hundred years?_ " Ruby blinked. "Okay,  _wow._ " She thought about this for a moment. "Shouldn't I be worried about you guys, I don't know, killing me or something? To preserve your secret?"

Hitch looked vaguely scandalized. "Kid, we're not  _savages._ "

"At the very least," said Miles, the green dragon, shaking out his wings, "wait until LB gets back. She'll do all the killing that needs to get done. I'm going to sleep," he added in Hitch and the other dragon's direction.

"See you later!" said the grey dragon cheerfully, and Miles took off into the trees.

Hitch rolled his eyes. "Don't mind Froghorn. He doesn't like humans much, not after... well."

"Not after what?" Ruby asked after a moment, curious.

"Never mind," said Hitch, and stopped talking abruptly.

There was a short, awkward silence, and then Ruby turned to the other dragon. "So, you seem pretty cool, but I don't actually know your name yet-?"

"Oh! Right!" He seemed unsure of what to do for a moment, then seemed to decide on extending a single claw out to her, in much the same matter as Hitch had. "I'm Blacker. I'm... well. I'm a dragon."

"I can see that," said Ruby, and then shook his talon once. He was definitely smaller than Hitch was, but still nearly two times as big as she was. "I'm Ruby - I'm a human," she added with a grin.

"I can also see  _that,_ " said Blacker, and looked up at Hitch. "Do we have a place for her to stay?"

"Didn't really think that far ahead," Hitch admitted.

"Okay, we can work with that," Blacker said, and looked around the campsite. "It might be a bit dangerous to lend you a hammock, since you're not used to sleeping in trees - how do you feel about just sleeping in a massive pile of blankets tonight?"

"Define massive," said Ruby.

"Really hecking big," defined Blacker. "Also I bet I can find a ridiculous amount of pillows as well."

"Holy shit," said Ruby, delighted. "Blanket fort!"

Blacker's eyes widened. "That never even occurred to me, but you're  _right._ " He stood up, stretching his wings out, and nodded solemnly. "Okay, one dangerously large pile of pillows and blankets coming right up."

He took a step forward, and flapped, propelling himself high into the trees. Within seconds, he had disappeared into the blackness.

"That doesn't seem like the sort of thing a responsible adult would let you do," said Hitch, yawning, "but you know what; it's late and I'm tired. Whatever works."

"I like Blacker," Ruby said, watching the trees where he left to. "He seems cool."

"He is cool - extremely so. I'm glad you're getting along." Hitch eyed her. "We're going to have to get moving pretty early tomorrow, so don't stay up too late making that fort."

Ruby rolled her eyes. "Okay,  _dad._ " She paused for a second. "Wait, why do we need to leave so early?"

Hitch looked a bit shifty. "Well - we're technically not supposed to bring humans back to camp. Some others might have mentioned that?" When Ruby indicated agreement, he nodded and continued. "The one who  _made_ that rule has been... travelling away from camp for a while now, and we're not sure when she'll be back. But if she does come back, and you're still here, I don't think she'd be too pleased with any of us."

Ruby mulled this over for a moment. "That's LB, right?"

Hitch looked surprised. "Yeah. That's her. How-?"

"I was paying attention," she said. "I like to think I'm good at that."

"That's a good skill to have," he said. "But anyway - we should head off as early as possible. To one of the other towns in the area at least, since you're so dead-set against going to Twinford." Ruby began to open her mouth, but he cut her off. "We can argue about it tomorrow, kid."

"But," she began, and would have probably continued if it weren't for the fact that an unholy amount of blankets fell quite suddenly from the sky, landing directly on top of Ruby. She was, instantly and effectively, buried in them, before she could even yelp in protest.

Blacker landed a short distance away, dumping an equally ridiculous amount of pillows onto the grassy ground. "Do you think this is enough?"

Hitch looked on in amusement. "Maybe you should get a few more, just in case."

"Oh god," said Blacker, now noticing the unmoving pile of fabric that he had created. "Did I kill her?"

A second passed, then Ruby emerged from the pile like a whale breaching out of the ocean, complete with a large, exaggerated intake of air. She flopped onto the ground, gasping. "This is  _exactly_ enough blankets. Where did you even get all of this?"

"Sometimes when we scare off people from the forest, they drop stuff and leave without picking it up," explained Blacker, flicking a pillow in her direction with his tail. "We've got a stockpile of all sorts of junk."

She caught it, and after a moment's consideration, hurled it back at him with a surprising amount of strength. "Isn't that stealing?"

"We'd be happy to return their possessions," Hitch said. "But they never actually end up asking for them back."

"I wonder why," said Ruby, grinning. She dodged another pillow that Blacker hurled in her direction, and then got hit in the head with yet another that she didn't see coming. She went down like a sack of bricks - although her landing, thankfully, was cushioned by the insane amount of blankets on the forest floor. "Ow! Not so hard, man!"

"Whoops." Blacker looked as genuinely guilty as it was possible for a reptilian lifeform to express with his scaly face, and loped forwards, nudging aside blankets and pillows so he could help her up. "Are you -?"

" _PSYCH,_ " Ruby yelled, leaping up and nailing him in the snout with a well-placed feathery missile. Blacker fell over sideways, laughing.

There were a chorus of  _shh_ s and some scattered "we're trying to  _sleep_ "s from all around. 

"All right, I'm calling bed time," Hitch decided. "It's close to one in the morning, and I'm pretty sure humans need several hours of sleep per night to function properly."

"Hey, no, I'm fine," Ruby said, but spoiled it by yawning. "...but sleep does sound good."

The fire was burning low again, and most of the camp was obscured in shadow. The two dragons took flight, rising up through the air and into the trees. In a matter of seconds, they were gone from sight, leaving Ruby on the ground to climb into her mountain of blankets.

"G'night, Hitch - g'night, Blacker," she called upwards - softly, so as to not wake the rest of the dragons.

"Night, kid," came the response from somewhere above her - Hitch. Blacker didn't respond verbally, but a moment later, another pillow came sailing down from above, hitting her squarely in the chest. 

She grinned up at the stars, partially obscured by the trees and dragons, and curled up in the pile of blankets, sighing. 

Within minutes, she was asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my tumblr - [agentredfort](http://www.agentredfort.tumblr.com)


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